DOMINION’S FINANCES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3557, 2 November 1926, Page 2

DOMINION’S FINANCES

NOMINAL INCREASE

HALF-YEARLY FIGURES

Wellington, Last Night,

The public accounts for the cjuarter ended September 30’ appear in the Supplementary Gazette. The following official summary is issued by the Treasury. REVENUE. The total revenue received for the six months amounted to £9,80.1 ■ 547. For the same six months of last year, after excluding railway revenue, which is now paid to a separate account, the revenue was £8,047,356, so that the first half of the financial year 1926, shows an increase of £1,154,191 over the same period of last year. Included in the current half year’s revenue, however, are the following items, which were not received during the first half year of 1925: Interest on railways capital liability, £1,010,377; interest on Public Debt Redemption Fund, £136,812; total, £1,147,189. The increase over last year is therefore nominal. The principal increases are: Customs £48,484, Post and Telegraph £150,117, income tax £143,501, Departmental receipts £40,915, and the principal decreases, Stamp and Death duties £64,849, land tax £27,567, interest on publicmoneys £278^839. EXPENDITURE. The tiotaS expenditure or permanent charges was £6,683,615, annual appropriations excluding railways expenditure, £4,600,385, total £11,284,000, as against a total for the six months of last year, of permanent charges £5,837,793, annual appropriations (excluding a total of £1,147,902. But from this must be deducted for comparative purposes, payments amounting to railways expenditure) '£4,298,245, total £10,136,038, an increase of permanent charges £845,822 and annual appropriations £302,140, or £566,000 made in the second half of 1925-26.

The principal increases in permanent charges are interest £167,903, repayment of Public* Debt Aet, 1925, £390,000, under Special Acts £277,830. .Under the annual appropriations, the principal increases are: —vote for Legislative Departments’ £32,149, Department of Internal Affairs £52,196, Printing and Stationery Department, £25,619, Naval Defence £34,148, Defence £24,095, Customs £54,025, Department of Education £73,409. The change in accounting brought about by two important policy Acts, the Railways Amendment Aet, 1925 and the Public Department Repayment Act, 1925, do not enable periodic comparisons between 1925/26 and 1926/27 to be easily made, and a sui'4 survey in simple form is only possible at the close of the year.